08 April 2002 - Rolling Around

Position at 1200: 49° 20.6'S, 42° 43.4'W - 584 Miles ENE of Stanley and 338 Miles NNW of Bird Island
Distance Travelled since Grimsby: 38439 Nautical Miles
Air temperature: 10.4°C; Sea temperature: 6.1°C
Weather : Partly cloudy, fine and clear with good visibility and improving all the time, Wind- NE force 5, Sea state- moderate sea and swell

Current, frequent weather observations reported back to BAS Headquarters in Cambridge is used to plot the ship's current position and recent track. Meteorological data are also available from this page. The callsign of RRS James Clark Ross is ZDLP.

The final month!!

As there is not a lot of stuff of interest to the world in general going
on at the moment on here (meaning nothing to take nice photos of!) the
last few web pages of this trip will be coming fortnightly; this means
that we only have possibly two more before we go home.

This last couple of weeks we have been doing a swath bathemetry survey, to the NNW
of South Georgia. During this time we have had all sorts of weather from very rough (with
us rolling around all over the place up to around 30 degrees either side
of the upright) to this last weekend where it was nice and sunny, about
16°C and with only a bit of a breeze!

A little game for all

Following on from saying that it was a bit roly-poly for a while, we
have come up with a game especially for all of you, the rules are simple......

First have no sleep for a couple of days

Get a pal to slide your food/tea/beer past you up and down the table quickly
till you give up or it falls on the floor

Get the same pal to pull your chair up and down while you are trying to
eat/work

While leaning from side to side about 30° shove everything off your desk

For the ultimate test of whether or not you are a real sailor.....try the
leaning trick whilst using the toilet!!!!

Swear lots (not for the kids) and repeat at frequent intervals

Pick it all up and start again

Above: Angus and Nick the motormen demonstrate their 'sealegs' on a visit to the bridge and the view looking the other way. Click on the image for a better view.

Some other distractions......

Also over the last weeks, when we have not been playing the fun game
above, we have been passing the time with things like a flutter on the
horses for the Grand National, this is where you 'buy' a horse for a whole
pound and hope that it even starts! Then there are prizes for the first
three places. We are very proud to announce that the winner of this grand race was Jo Preston.

There was a quiz night in the officers' bar on saturday night hosted
by Jo......hang on now we know where the prize money for the quiz came
from!! This was won by Pete Lens, Peter Hunter and Duncan the Chief Engineer,
well done to them and all of the other teams that took part.

Best of all a scalextric race track has appeared in the main lab; we all agree that this is a much better use for this area than filling
it with boring microscopes and such like.....I mean copepods or cars, no
comparison really!

There have also been some emergency drills, one of which for the science
staff meant getting a bit wet; while we were rescuing people from enclosed
spaces they were being shown fire extingushers and hoses, and having a
go with them under the watchful eye of Doug the deck.

Above: Hose drills for all. Click on the images to enlarge them. Photos from Pete Lens.

Our weather......

This is an image from our Dartcom HRPT, you can clearly see the Falklands
and Cape Horn. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Thankyous.....

Pete and Steve for pics etc

Coming up over the next couple of weeks.....

More swath followed by more swath followed by ...... oh and possibly some contributions from some of the crew about life on board.....watch this space!